Fifty years ago, Goldwater rocked GOP convention

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the rowdy 1964 Republican National Convention, which was staged July 13-16 in San Francisco. Arizona conservative Barry Goldwater won the GOP presidential nomination but lost big later in the year to President Lyndon Johnson.(Photo: Republic file photo)

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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the raucous 1964 Republican National Convention that nominated Arizona's U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater and steered the Republican Party hard to the right.

The explosive July 13, 1964, to July 16, 1964, gathering at the San Francisco's Cow Palace highlighted the severe divide in the GOP between conservatives who backed the front-runner Goldwater and moderates who backed New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, Goldwater's chief rival in the primaries, and Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton, a late entrant in the race.

"It was very controversial," said Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics who is working on a documentary on the 1964 election that is expected to air on PBS in the fall. "It was really the first indication that the Republican Party would become the conservative party and that moderates, sooner or later, would be shown the door. It took a long time, but Goldwater set the standard for the future."

The convention climaxed with Goldwater's now-famous nomination acceptance speech in which he proclaimed "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Other emotionally charged moments included noisy conservatives in the audience drowning out Rockefeller with catcalls and boos when he called on Republicans to adopt a platform that repudiated the party's "extremists." The GOP moderates likewise tried and failed to add liberal planks on civil rights and nuclear arms.

"It was one of the first times that technology was brought to bear in communications, with a command post, and all the soldiers on the floor, making sure that the delegates are all lined up," Barry Goldwater Jr., the 1964 nominee's son, recently recalled in an interview with The Arizona Republic. "That was full of intrigue, and a lot of planning and execution. They just outfoxed the Rockefellers and the Scrantons and they won."

Goldwater's triumphant moment was short-lived. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson crushed him in a landslide on Election Day, although Goldwater's campaign is widely viewed today as a precursor to President Ronald Reagan's conservative victory in 1980. More recently, parallels have been drawn between the GOP's internal struggle in 1964 and the conservative "tea party" rebellion against the party's establishment that continues today.

"He (Goldwater) did talk to me about the convention, that it was very badly disjointed," said U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who won the retiring Goldwater's Senate seat in 1986 and was the 2008 GOP presidential nominee. "And he attributed the disorder — the clear splits within the Republican Party that manifested themselves during the convention — as one of the reasons for the size of his defeat. But he also always said that he knew after (President John F.) Kennedy was assassinated, his chances of winning were almost nil."

In other developments:

* U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., this weekend is in Central America on a fact-finding visit with fellow members of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner's ad hoc working group on the humanitarian crisis at the border. The members are going to Guatemala and Honduras, the home countries of many of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant minors who have crossed into the United States without authorization in recent months. They are hoping to meet with the presidents of both nations, he said.

Salmon added he had to turn down an invitation to appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" to make the whirlwind trip.

* Rachael Dean, McCain's press secretary, has departed his office for a job with Javelin, a public relations, literary and digital agency based in Alexandria, Va.

"It is rare that a person you idolized as an outsider lives up to your expectations once you actually get to know them — Senator McCain far surpassed mine," Dean said Wednesday in a goodbye e-mail to the media.

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @dannowicki.